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TelMex and modems


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The old saw "If it ain't broke..." plays well here.

If you shop on MercadoLibre, send me a link to the one which interests you, and I can tell you. As far as I know, there is no "list" indicating the latest.

No offense, please, but if I knew of one that appeals to me it would be the latest and/or best model and I'd buy it.  I'm not so sure my modem isn't broke -- my internet drops probably ten times a day but I don't know if that's the modem or just Mexico.

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My modem went out on Friday afternoon.  I called CD/MX 800 number, they did the usual and gave me a request for service number and said within 3 days they would have me a replacement modem.  Yesterday about 12:30 they showed up at my house (yes, on a Sunday) with a new modem.  I was shocked and thankful.  It was a guy in a telmex delivery truck I had never seen before.  

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No offense, please, but if I knew of one that appeals to me it would be the latest and/or best model and I'd buy it.  I'm not so sure my modem isn't broke -- my internet drops probably ten times a day but I don't know if that's the modem or just Mexico.

Then you need your Internet system tested before you do anything else. You said your modem was five years old; you didn't say you were having problems.

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Then you need you Internet system tested before you do anything else. You said your modem was five years old; you didn't say you were having problems.

Uuuh, connection drops up to ten times a day.  Laptop, phone, tablet are all affected at the same time.  All I get from Telmex is "Call Mexico City".

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Laptop, phone, tablet would of course all be affected, because you are using one WiFi for each of them. TelMex is correct: call Mexico City.

Did that.  Usually when I ask for an English-speaking tech, they hang up on me.  When I do reach one, he leads me down the usual rabbit hole:  Unplug, wait, plug back in.  Push reset button.  Which lights are flashing? etc.  Evidently they can't do diagnostics from there.  Says it seems to be OK.  Of course it is, by the time I actually get transferred to a tech guy the internet is back up.  For all I know, it goes down city-wide.

My thought was to buy another modem, the latest model of course whatever that is.  The worst thing that can happen is I wasted some money and the problem doesn't go away.  Then I wait for Telmex to fix it everywhere.  Ha.

Back to my original post.  Which model should I be looking for to have the latest and best stuff?

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They can and most definitely do diagnostics while you are online; they can see into your modem and make all kinds of decisions. Serious adjustments must be forwarded to a higher level, but they are usually pretty good about it. They, like all support offices, have a list of prequisite check points they must go through, unless you can guarantee them you are a knowledge expert and have already checked those items. And they have somewhat of a turnover, so there are always going to be newbies who haven't memorized the list yet. Unfortunately, for the non-technical, it is all to easy to miss one of the items if not asked, and thus the boring routine.

One of the most recent modems is the Huawei HG658D. It is designed for their current infrastructure, which includes VDSL connections, and has a 10% improvement in WiFi strength and distance over models from two years ago. But, tell us what model you have now.

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The HG532 series do not support VDSL. So it may be worth your while to upgrade. It is TelMex's responsibility to give you a new modem every two years, period. However, the way they are operating these days, who knows? You can try them, or you can go online as indicated in my previous post.

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Just to make sure I have it right, the primary modem must be from TelMex and only TelMex?  It is not possible to program a higher quality modem to replace the TelMex modem, correct?

If it is possible, CG please PM me if you do this and what it usually costs.  I have a very nice ASUS I'd love to use.

 

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We all know by now that TelMex won't replace your modem if you bring a dead one into their offices lakeside. I don't know if this is a universal policy, or just here. I would appreciate hearing from others, say in PV, Morelia, wherever you might be. (You must now call TelMex in Mexico City and get authorization.)

This unwillingness to properly care for their own customers seems to be spreading outside the office. The other day, I had a customer with a dead modem, and I left a working loaner. She had already contacted support and they said they would send someone over. That repair person came a few days later, but my client tells me it was a fight to convince him to swap modems, for various reasons, but partly because he couldn't seem to accept the fact that the working modem wasn't hers. This is just unacceptable. And yet, what are we to do? Back home, service tends to improve. Here, it often seems to go backwards.

No way to use a 3rd party modem? I read that some people are daisy chaining a modem or 2 off the Telmax modem with no issues. One person using it for his VPN service.

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You must be willing to buy several modems and spend days trying them out, and have an extensive knowledge of modems, routers, and networking. My son brought five modems down a couple of years ago. He knows this stuff inside-and-out; in fact, it is his job with Bell Canada. Of course, it was the fifth one that he finally got working, and it took him over the course of 72 hours, bent over the computer screen a lot. Did it provide any improvement? No. And of course, the very next time the system had to be reset, all the settings disappeared.

So my non-technical answer is this. NO, you cannot use a third-party modem.

You can, as has been discussed in detail many, many times in this forum, use a third-party router to perhaps improve your WiFi base, or to install VPN firmware. This is a service I do not offer, because any time there is a glitch in the system, the whole rig needs to be reset,  and no one wants to pay for repeated housecalls. So the only people I recommend the VPN efforts to are those who can look after it themselves. Same reason I am not casually offering help with Android boxes or anything else to try and get Hulu or NetFlix.

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4 hours ago, ComputerGuy said:

You must be willing to buy several modems and spend days trying them out, and have an extensive knowledge of modems, routers, and networking. My son brought five modems down a couple of years ago. He knows this stuff inside-and-out; in fact, it is his job with Bell Canada. Of course, it was the fifth one that he finally got working, and it took him over the course of 72 hours, bent over the computer screen a lot. Did it provide any improvement? No. And of course, the very next time the system had to be reset, all the settings disappeared.

So my non-technical answer is this. NO, you cannot use a third-party modem.

You can, as has been discussed in detail many, many times in this forum, use a third-party router to perhaps improve your WiFi base, or to install VPN firmware. This is a service I do not offer, because any time there is a glitch in the system, the whole rig needs to be reset,  and no one wants to pay for repeated housecalls. So the only people I recommend the VPN efforts to are those who can look after it themselves. Same reason I am not casually offering help with Android boxes or anything else to try and get Hulu or NetFlix.

Thank you kindly for your candor. . Just trying to figure this all out. Since I do my banking over the net I am still trying to figure out which VPN to use but I gather all will be well (fingers crossed) if I just go through the telmex modem. Is there any VPN service in particular that you would recommend.

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TunnelBear is an excellent choice. They give you half a Gig a month, automatically. You can even earn an extra Gig by tweeting about it. It's fast and reliable. I use it often for quick looks at U.S. websites that constantly revert to Mexican when first attempted. I even used it this week to download the Alexa app for my Android phone, which is not available outside the country.

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17 hours ago, ComputerGuy said:

You must be willing to buy several modems and spend days trying them out, and have an extensive knowledge of modems, routers, and networking. My son brought five modems down a couple of years ago. He knows this stuff inside-and-out; in fact, it is his job with Bell Canada. Of course, it was the fifth one that he finally got working, and it took him over the course of 72 hours, bent over the computer screen a lot. Did it provide any improvement? No. And of course, the very next time the system had to be reset, all the settings disappeared.

So my non-technical answer is this. NO, you cannot use a third-party modem.

You can, as has been discussed in detail many, many times in this forum, use a third-party router to perhaps improve your WiFi base, or to install VPN firmware. This is a service I do not offer, because any time there is a glitch in the system, the whole rig needs to be reset,  and no one wants to pay for repeated housecalls. So the only people I recommend the VPN efforts to are those who can look after it themselves. Same reason I am not casually offering help with Android boxes or anything else to try and get Hulu or NetFlix.

Just an update on my experience using ExpressVPN on my Archer C7 router: I can access any US site that I have tried including Hulu, Netflix, SlingTV, YouTube and many others. Any device here in our condo that is connected to this router has no issues. The one issue I have had is that for some reason the router will disconnect from the VPN perhaps once every 2 or 3 days. Support cannot tell me why. The fix is very simple as I now have the router bookmarked and just go in and hit disconnect and then connect and problem solved. Right near the extent of my tech ability!  Here is what it looks like when connected. Support told me all the values I needed to enter:

 

Static IP PPPoE/Russia PPPoE BigPond Cable L2TP/Russia L2TP PPTP/Russia PPTP

WAN
 
WAN Connection Type:                          
 
User Name: xxxxxxx
Password: xxxxxxxx
         Connected!
 
   Dynamic IP    Static IP
Server IP Address/Name:  
IP Address:
192.168.1.79
Subnet Mask:
255.255.255.0
Gateway:
192.168.1.254
DNS:
192.168.1.254 , 0.0.0.0
 
Internet IP Address:
10.0.1.183
Internet DNS:
10.0.1.1 , 0.0.0.0
 
MTU Size (in bytes):   (The default is 1460, do not change unless necessary.)
Max Idle Time:   minutes (0 means remain active at all times.)
 
WAN Connection Mode:  Connect on Demand
   Connect Automatically
   Connect Manually
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  • 2 weeks later...

The story of TelMex just gets worse and worse. Now I have a customer who went in to the office last week to register that the Internet was out (I tested first with a spare modem, so we know it's not the modem). They perhaps took a report, and then told them to call Mexico City.

It appears you have to forceful with these layabouts, because now they are ignoring Internet customers completely. Since I am willing to bet Internet contracts make up the bulk of their income, you'd think they'd focus on service just a little more than they are. Of course, I am also convinced it's just our office. Laziest SOBs I've ever met.

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